On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 9:03 PM Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Feb 2022 at 15:39, Avi Gross via Python-list > <python-list@python.org> wrote: > > Take interpreted languages including Python and R that specify all kinds > of functions that may be written within the language at first. Someone may > implement a function like sum() (just an example) that looks like the sum > of a long list of items is the first item added to a slightly longer sum of > the remaining items. It stops when the final recursive sum is about to be > called with no remaining arguments. Clearly this implementation may be a > tad slow. But does Python require this version of sum() or will it allow > any version that can be called the same way and returns the same results > every time? > > > > That's also true of C and pretty much every language I know of. They > define semantics, not implementation. > This comes back to something we've discussed before. A language that is described primarily by a reference implementation rather than a standard, runs the risk of being defined by that implementation. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
